Arin gasped, jolting awake in bed.
For just a moment, he lay there, blinking up at the wooden beams. Not that he could see them in the pitch black of the room. Even so, he knew they were there.
He was back in the same room where he and Siel had been put up while within the dream.
Without wasting any more time, he sat up. The movement elicited a soft rustling from within one of his pockets, and he turned his head for a moment, before ultimately choosing to ignore it.
He didn't need the note he had written to himself. Fortunately, it seemed that having broken through the falsehoods and illusions of the distortion once, had helped him not forget what he already knew.
For now, at least.
As Arin turned to leave, he suddenly paused. He thought he'd heard something. Cocking his head, he listened intently, before finally turning towards the other bed in the room.
The sounds of soft, rhythmic breathing drifted his way from the bed. Straining his eyes in the dark, he could make out a person-shaped lump stretched out under the covers.
Siel.
…
Arin sighed, before carefully unlocking the door and padding out of the room on silent footsteps.
He was very aware of how fortunate he was, to be facing a distortion that wasn't remotely as violent or volatile as they typically seemed to be.
If, for instance, he'd been facing the one Siel had mentioned earlier - the one that had basically turned all the people within a certain distance inside-out - there'd be nothing else for him to do besides apologizing to Rin, and praying he somehow got blessed with a third chance at life.
This one wasn't actively shredding him to bits. This one had even given him a chance to escape, once. It had been entirely his choice to re-enter Silvershade at night, and allow himself to fall prey to it again.
Even so, how very frightening it still was.
He currently had clear knowledge and full awareness of what was going on. He knew he'd entered the dream alone. But somehow, Siel was also here.
Spend long enough in the distortion, with everything reset back to the way it had been before Elara had gotten through to them, and who's to say he wouldn't eventually get mudded again?
That, or mad.
Seriously, poor Elara.
How had that girl been managing by herself?
Arin carefully made his way down the corridor in the dead of the night. All of a sudden, he had to stop, and strain his ears once more.
He'd heard something again.
Somewhere, in the dark, there were some strange, unfamiliar sounds.
Squish… squish…
squish- clatter.
…
Sob.
His heart sped up in his chest. There was something very odd, very disquieting about those noises. Also, had that been a sob!?
Was that a person? Was someone crying?
Crying in the nighttime was never a good sign. Especially so, considering what had happened the last time he'd heard it.
Squish…
Drip-drip-
-thud.
Pressing down on his growing unease, Arin turned his footsteps in the direction of those sounds, moving as quietly as he could manage.
Sob.
As he slowly shuffled along, pausing every few steps to make sure he was going in the right direction, Arin also kept a vigilant eye on everything else, including his own mental state.
No warping, no swirling, and no sinking. No headaches, no confusion, and no cause for concern… besides those awful sounds.
What was going on?
His footsteps led him past the residential areas of the estate, past the hall, and towards the rear wing, that was separated from the main house by a short passage.
He hadn't explored this part of the house much; there had simply been no need. He already knew that it led to the kitchen, and opened into a small service yard of sorts to one side.
Clatter -
- scrabbling -
squish.
…
Sob.
Arin breathed in lightly. Out in the real world, this part of the house had smelled much the same as the rest of it; not unpleasant, but still musty and somewhat stale from weeks of unuse.
In here, within the dream world, however, there still remained a tang of smoke and embers - traces of the cooks' recent efforts in the kitchen, lingering on even after they'd finished with the day's work. As he got nearer, he could even pick out the faded scent of some kind of meat broth, along with the ghost of onions and herbs.
And… something else. Something…
Arin paused right at the entrance.
The noises were coming from somewhere within the pitch black kitchen.
Well, there's no point in building suspense -
Still silent, Arin slipped into the room. His eyes had adjusted to the dark by now, and he could make out a number of things crowded into the room; long tables and barrels, shelves and sacks.
Silhouettes, large and small, lined the walls, and the sides, and the middle of the room. Every inch seemed to have been utilized in some way, besides a few bare patches where the cooks and assistants probably stood, and a large-ish clearing near the back.
In that clearing lay a person, their figure only visible as a small, dark silhouette, with it's arms moving erratically as they swept around and searched for something on the floor.